


Claustrophilia

by if420fireflies



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Battle of Hogwarts, no beta we die like men, what is HARRY doing with his life? comforting death eaters apparently, what is draco doing with his life? nobody knows
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-12
Updated: 2020-09-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:42:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26412088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/if420fireflies/pseuds/if420fireflies
Summary: Four years after the war, Draco Malfoy creates his own prisons. Tiny corners under staircases, the cramped insides of hollow trees, narrow stone wells in his childhood nemesis' backyard - you name it, Draco's been there, sequestered himself there.Small spaces, forgiveness, self-worth, and the importance of wands. Also a desk-drawer furniture thing in Harry's cottage, and a Draco who begins to allow himself to want things again.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Comments: 20
Kudos: 148





	Claustrophilia

**Author's Note:**

> The title, unfortunately or fortunately, depending on your viewpoint, is not a reference to the kink. But either way, who doesn't want to curl up at the bottom of a well?
> 
> Thank you in advance for reading!

It all starts with the house. It's ridiculously thin, like a pancake, about two metres wide and ten metres in length. It's two stories. Because of its thinness, it has a staircase at the back end, with steps so narrow they were more like ledges, on which you can barely get any purchase. At the other end, there's a cramped kitchenette, which leads into a cramped foyer, which leads to the door. Draco isn’t sure how it passed building regulations, but it was all that he could afford, after the post-war restitutions on the Malfoy fortune, and the impossibility of finding work. 

On the day Draco had moved in, he had looked around the grimy, ridiculously constructed house. Then, on one of those irrational impulses that still overtook him sometimes, after all this time, the kind of impulse that stems from human agency and self-indulgence, he’d walked to the staircase and fit himself in the tiny space beneath it. He banged his head on the stairs, but he quickly curled up, tucked against the corner of the underside of the bottom steps. And for a second, he felt safe. Nobody to spit at him, hiss _scum_ into his ears, no small children trying to climb up him, pulling on his robes and reaching for his hair, as their parents smiled vindictively nearby, knowing he didn’t have magic, and that he wouldn’t dare step a hair out of line. Those things simply would not be able to fit, in that tiny space under the tiny staircase. And so there Draco stayed, for hours.

He loves the house. He doesn’t change a thing about it, not the grime, nor the tiny windows, nor the tattered greyish curtains. He doesn’t even buy a bed, instead sleeping curled up in the space under the stairs, long limbs aching and cold when he wakes up.

He works, sweeping floors under the fluorescent lights of a Muggle grocery store. He makes sure that while he's there, he's always smiling and ready to help, even though he wants nothing more than to crawl into one of the empty cardboard boxes that were abundant in the back rooms and stay there for the rest of his shift. 

He's very good at dealing with difficult customers, in part because the respect he received from the least decent of Muggles was still more than what he got from even the kinder wizards. Whether they complain about the bruises on the tomatoes they themselves had dropped on the ground, or scream at him, asking where “the fucking knives are, because I’m about to stab you, are you even listening? Where’s your manager?” Draco just nods seriously at them, speaks only if necessary, and then resolves their complaint. It works well enough that the others often redirected problem customers to him instead. He doesn’t talk to his coworkers though, and barely even to his employer, a middle-aged man named Bobby.

Every month, he walks into Gringotts, endures the whispered insults with long-jaded apathy, and waits patiently as others cut in line in front of him. Then he exchanges his meager Muggle salary for enough Galleons to pay the rent. He hates Gringotts. High vaulted ceilings and no places to hide. But he holds his head high, because he's a Malfoy, as little pride as there is in the name now.

How can he hope to rebuild anything at all, with no magic and a parole officer, and with barely the ability to maintain a minimum-wage Muggle job? He also finds it amusing that the Ministry found it necessary to both snap his wand and put a trace on his magic. It's not like he's some sort of master of wandless magic. He’s also forbidden from leaving the country, associating with anyone who had even the slightest connection to Voldemort, including his own mother, or entering any establishment on a long, long list.

So, fettered as he is, he may as well find his own prisons, while he still has the choice. He expects a summons to join his father in Azkaban any day. 

He finds a broad, dead oak tree in the Wiltshire woods, the branches still reaching optimistically to the sunlight, a few naive young leaves still growing. But there’s a small gap in the bark, which is just big enough to allow Draco to squeeze through into the hollow, dark interior of the tree. He spends a lot of time reading by the glow of a Muggle penlight, in that cramped, quiet space. He finds an abandoned beaver lodge in a quiet pond, the branched knotted mass looming in the water like a dying beast. He swims up into it on days when the sun has warmed the water, poking his head into the inside while his feet remain on the silty lakebed, marveling at the industry of creatures long gone or dead. 

Small places are comforting.

Draco also finds an stone well near somebody’s cottage, the weeds growing up around its circumference. He drops a rock into it and hears a dry thud seconds after. So of course, he comes back the next day with a length of rope, wraps one end around his waist and over his shoulders in a sort of harness, and ties the other end tightly around a tree, and walks his way down the well, his hands and feet pressing harshly against the stone. He makes it to the floor in less than a minute, and curls up happily like a cat in the sandy bottom of the well, the rock he had thrown into it the day before digging into his side. It’s the perfect size, about the width of a doorframe in diameter, the real world a distant circle of light above him. When he climbs back out an hour later, he takes the rock out with him, and looks back at the inviting cool mouth of the well.

He ends up going there every day he doesn’t have work or parole appointments, curled up in the safety of stone and far-away sunlight. Sometimes he reads in the dim light, sometimes he sleeps, sometimes he just sits cross-legged and stares up at the mouth of the well. Sometimes, looking up at that circle of light in the darkness, he feels something that might be called contentment. It's the feeling that the world in his head has finally been reflected by the world outside. So he goes back, again and again, to the dark dry well behind somebody’s cottage.

On his fourth visit, he finds Harry Potter standing there grimly against the well, arms crossed. Draco doesn’t even blink, but instead just stares at him warily. Potter’s wearing a Weird Sisters T-shirt and Muggle jeans.

“Malfoy,” he says. Draco does not reply.

“Malfoy!” he repeats, more urgently.

“Should I leave? I apologize if I’ve intruded on your time,” Draco replies.

Potter looks completely blindsided by this.

Draco nods politely at him, then walks off, his book and rope under his arm.

“Malfoy! -Draco. Wait.”

Draco turns back, waiting.

Potter seems to take a breath. “What the hell are you doing every day in my well?”

For the first time in many, many years, Draco feels indignation.

“ _Your_ well? It’s _mine._ ” 

Well, leave it to Potter to make Draco everything he hates about himself again.

“It’s on my property. That’s my house,” and Potter jerks his shoulder, indicating the cottage.

“Oh. I’m sorry for trespassing.”

“Merlin- Could you stop apologizing? It’s really throwing me off, hearing ‘I’m sorry’ coming out of your mouth.”

“Sorry,” Draco can’t help but say, enjoying the expression on Harry’s face. He looks torn between frustration and confusion. Draco allows himself a small smile.

“You-” Potter stops, rubbing at his eyes, “okay, you still haven’t answered my question.” He looks up at Draco, grim ‘there shall be no nefarious deeds done on my watch’ face back again. “What were you _doing_ in the well?”

“Sleeping. Reading, sometimes.”

“What- why in a well?”

Draco shrugs.

“It’s small. Comfortable.”

“The bottom of a _well?_ ”

“I can show you. It’s nice.” God, oh no, why did he offer _that?_

Potter looks at him dubiously, but evidently he pays no heed to what happened to the proverbial curious cat, because he gestures Draco towards the well.

So Draco rigs up his harness and climbs down the walls of the well. “It’s only about four metres down,” he calls up to Potter’s face above him.

Potter follows him down, almost slipping a few times, and seems surprised when he hits the ground hard. He eventually rights himself, leaning against the wall opposite from Draco, the combined heat of their bodies making the well warmer than usual.

“Didn’t you think to put a Cushioning Charm on this?”

“Don’t have a wand, Potter.”

“What? But I gave it back to you-”

“Ministry regulations. They snapped my wand.”

“ _What?_ ” and by the end of the syllable, he ends up practically snarling. Draco doesn’t think he’s seen Potter this angry since school. Evidently, they still rile each other up. As always. “So you just haven’t done any magic for, what, four years?”

“Yes, pretty much.”

He looks furious at this.

“What a waste. I hate to admit it, but you were _good_ at Potions, and you can’t even brew without magic, can you?”

“No. But it’s fine. I don’t know why you care so much.”

Suddenly, Potter’s fury is turned upon him, green eyes blazing. “I don’t understand why you care so little. It’s your own bloody life! And don’t think I haven’t seen how you let people treat you.”

“What- how I _let_ them treat me? You think I would debase myself like that? Do I _look_ like someone who would do that?” And this anger, anger at Potter, is so familiar to Draco that it slips out between his lips without any real effort on his part. Abruptly, Draco realizes he is inches away from Potter, in a well that’s only a few feet wide in the first place. He scrambles back quickly.

“Whatever, Malfoy. It’s none of my business. Not to mention, I still don’t get what’s so great about this well that you come back here day after day.”

“You saw me?”

“Well, yes. The wards go off, you know.”

“Oh. Should’ve realized. I’m not used to feeling magic anymore.”

Potter’s face flickers through several emotions. Astonishment, then horror, guilt, and resolve.

“You can use my wand. Cast something, if you want. I don’t know if you miss it.”

“Potter, you idiot. You would give your only weapon to a former Death Eater? Do you remember who I am? Draco Malfoy, ring a bell? Did you knock your head on the way down, perhaps? Are you suffering from amnesia?”

Potter just looks at him irritatedly, then shoves his wand without ceremony into Draco’s hand.

“Just cast, you arse,” he mutters.

“There’s a Trace on my magic.”

“Oh, for the love of Merlin, tell me they didn’t also put an ankle monitor on you.”

“No, but I _have_ been travel banned.”

“Kill me. Actually kill me.”

Draco wonders why he cares so much.

“Probably not wise words to say to an ex-Death Eater holding your wand in a small enclosed space. Who knows, I might go rogue and follow through.”

“Draco, we both know you can’t do that.” Another reminder of the chains around his shoulders. But Potter continues, “Do you know how many people I’ve met who deserve their lives less than you? So many people suddenly switched to Muggle-loving upstanding citizens the second I killed Voldemort. At least you’ve never been a fucking two-timer. And at _least_ you owned up to it.”

“...Thank you?”

“Here,” Potter says, and he puts his hands over Draco’s, guiding the wand. The tips of his fingers brush against Draco’s wrists, his right index almost touching the Dark Mark. “ _Lumos,_ ” he murmurs, and Draco feels with astonishment the magic flow from Potter _through_ him, and he doesn’t want to laugh, but he does, like a child. The magic pulses in him as the wand shines through the darkness, illuminating Harry’s grin. He’s _missed_ this.

“Thank you,” Draco whispers.

“It’s nothing. If you really like sitting at the bottom of my well so much, feel free to keep doing it, I suppose.” As the light fades, so does the atmosphere.

Draco nods, and abruptly climbs back out, almost kicking Potter in the head a few times. Potter remains standing at the bottom, cleaning his glasses and looking amused.

\--oOo--

The next few days, Draco goes to his usual spots, the beaver lodge, the hollow oak tree, and even the abandoned laundromat down the street, but they feel empty and vast rather than welcoming. Oh well. Sometimes changes like that just happen. The worlds turn, and things are no longer the same.

Draco begins to feel more comfortable at work, returning greetings to the cheerful high school student who works the Tuesday night shift with him. Probably because he has finally had an actual interaction with someone who doesn’t a) hate him for what he’s done (everyone magical, basically) or b) hate him for what he hadn’t done (angry Muggle customers, complaining about bruised produce.) Strange that Potter straddles those two worlds, and yet is the first person to be willing to talk to him.

“So you _can_ speak!” the student exclaims. “I was beginning to wonder.”

He shrugs. “A lot of people would really prefer if I never opened my mouth again.”

“What are you, some YouTuber who’s fallen from public grace?” she scoffs.

“Something like that,” he allows, and turns. She scratches idly at the uncomfortable store uniform.

“Well, it’s nice to hear your voice, Draco.” she says.

Never has he heard his name said so casually, without the years of horrible decisions weighing upon it. It’s not a bad feeling. He hides a smile.

\--oOo--

When he returns to his house in the morning, completely ready to sleep, he steps under the staircase and curls up, but it’s no longer comfortable and safe like it once was. Instead, his legs cramp awkwardly and the plaster above scratches against his hair. Fucking Potter, Draco thinks. Even if he has nothing else, he has the right to blame Potter, no matter how irrational it is. He grabs his blanket, ascends the narrow stairs, and sleeps on the second floor for the first time, the sunlight slanting through the larger windows there.

When he wakes up at six in the afternoon, he walks back to the abandoned well. Why, he’s not sure. Like the corner under the staircase, and his other spots, he doubts it will be the same as it was before.

To his surprise, when he looks into the well, Potter’s already kicking around inside, muttering to himself.

“Potter?”

He jumps an impressive distance upwards, and strings together a rather interesting set of words, which include _fuck, gosh darn it,_ and _fuck you, Malfoy._

“Fucking _hell,_ Draco! Make some noise when you walk!” Potter glares up at him, but it’s not particularly convincing.

“Why are you down here in my well, anyways?” Draco asks.

“First of all, it’s not your well. And I was trying to figure out what you found so appealing about sitting in a damp hole.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to understand, you who are used to the comforts of magical life,” Draco says, grinning.

“You seem different today.”

Draco shrugs. “I had a conversation with the Muggle girl I work with yesterday.”

“Is that… special? Oh. Do you like her?”

Draco leans further over the lip of the well. “What?”

He rolls his eyes. “Do you want to go out with her, Malfoy.”

“No, I got that part, Potter. Do you not know I’m gay? Thought everyone picked that one up, at least.”

“You’re _what?_ ”

“Gay, Potter. Homosexual. Not into girls.”

“O-oh.” And suddenly, Potter refuses to meet his eyes. Well, alright then.

“Excuse me, I’m off to have more fantastic Death Eater adventures. See you around.”

“Malfoy, wait.” This time, Draco waits not as patiently.

“Was that girl the first person you’ve talked to? Other than me?”

“Don’t be stupid, I talk to lots of people. How else would the world inform me how worthless I am as a person?”

“Draco...”

“There’s no need to try to make up for your internalized homophobia by pitying me, Potter.”

“I’m not homophobic! Nor am I pitying you! Wait, what? _Internalized!_ I certainly don’t have that, either!”

“Oh yeah? So you stared at Cedric Diggory platonically every breakfast in fourth year, then? And if you’re not homophobic, prove it.” Draco stares at him challengingly from the top of the well, then presses a palm to his forehead, rewinds what he just said, and winces. “Sorry, sorry. Not my place to tell you what your own sexuality is.” 

Potter closes his eyes, but then suddenly opens them again.

“Would inviting you in be sufficient proof?” he asks, jerking his head towards his cottage. “We could cast a spell again.”

Draco considers this. “Sure,” he says. Potter climbs out of the well, Draco extending a hand and pulling him up the last few feet.

They walk through the overgrown weeds and grasses, along a cobblestone path, to Potter’s house. Like the well, it's made of stone brick, a one-story building with a smoking chimney and a sky blue front door. Potter opens said door for him, and bows mockingly. 

The first thing Draco sees is a small piece of furniture against a wall. One side of it is made of drawers, while the other half serves as a tiny table, a small space under it. It’s light brown in colour, and even from here Draco can smell the familiar scent of clean pine. Vaguely aware that there are other things in the room, he walks entranced towards the table-drawer, and without a word fits himself into the space under it, drawing his legs up and sighing gratefully. He tucks his head into his arms.

“What-” he hears, somewhere from the doorway, and then the sound of footsteps following him over, picking through the messy living room.

“I do have chairs, you know,” he says.

Draco doesn’t bother to reply.

“Er.. Draco, you alright?”

“Yes,” he mumbles into his sleeves.

“You’re just going to stay there?”

“Yep.” Draco looks up, and sees Potter’s green eyes gazing at him through his glasses. Potter sitting cross-legged across from him, leaning against nothing at all. Suddenly, he feels the exact same way as he did in the well, looking up in darkness at a circle of brilliance. Reflected, seen, understood.

“Do you just like small spaces, then?”

Draco smiles, and traps himself further against the wall.

You’re weird, Malfoy,” Potter suddenly declares, and walks away. A few minutes later, Draco smells chamomile. Potter returns, balancing two cups of tea in one hand, and places one by Draco’s feet.

“Thank you.” He shuffles partially out of the desk so that he can drink without spilling, and when he does, he’s surprised to find that Harry looks intensely relieved. They sit in silence for a few minutes, before Draco says “I believe I was promised spells?”

“Oh shoot, sorry, completely forgot.” Potter fumbles for his wand vaguely, gets frustrated, and says _accio wand._ It soars through the air and smacks into his palm. Wandless magic.

Draco’s eyes widen, despite his usual facades of apathy and stupidity. 

“ _Teach me how to do that._ ”

“Isn’t- isn’t your magic Traced, though?”

“I don’t _care_ , teach me the theory at least, I need to _know._ ”

And strangely, once again, Potter's features are swamped with relief, as if he’s been holding his breath, waiting all this time for Draco to angrily demand to be taught wandless magic.

“Alright, Malfoy. But I’m not sure how much you’ll get out of it, if you can’t try it out yourself.”

Draco stretches his legs out, leans back against the wall, and listens to the sounds of his former nemesis’ voice as he tries to explain how he accesses his magical core without a wand, and once again, feels something suspiciously like contentment.

\--oOo--

The next day is Gringotts day. He walks through the sunny streets of Diagon Alley. It’s almost a nice day. Well, not anymore, some little snot of a child is bearing down towards him. The parents hover vaguely nearby. He’s really, really sick of this routine.

When the boy nears him, Draco lowers himself, taking a knee, instead of walking on unseeingly as he usually does. The child stops, surprised.

“Your name Tom, is it?” Draco asks.

The eyes widen comically. “How did you know?”

Draco ignores the fact that TOM is printed in big, bright green letters on Tom’s shirt.

“I have my ways.”

Tom looks momentarily impressed. Then, he removes a lollipop from his mouth and begins monologuing. 

“My parents say you are a bad man, who did terrible terrible things, but I don’t need to worry, because if you do more terrible things, they’ll send you back to Azkaban. They say because you’re bad, it’s okay to be bad back at you,” he proclaims.

“Well, that’s a horribly depressing worldview.”

“Oh. What does depressing mean?” The boy continues licking at his lollipop.

“Don’t worry about it. Wanna hear a secret?”

“A _secret?_ ”

“Yes. You have to promise not to tell anyone.” Draco glances up, to see Tom’s mom and dad looking nervously at the two of them, Draco still on his knee.

“I promise,” announces the boy seriously.

“I’m not a bad person,” Draco says, and the lie sounds false even to his ears, but Tom’s eyes widen, and he gasps.

“Really?”

“Yes. Now I think you should go back to mum and dad, they’re looking worried.”

Tom scampers self-importantly back to his parents, who are now wearing identical expressions of panicked fury.

Tom’s father speedwalks towards him and grabs Draco by the lapels of his robes. “What are you doing with my son, you little-”

“He said you have a horribly depressing worldview,” Tom remarks brightly.

This does not seem to impress Tom’s father. 

“He also told me a secret,” Tom continues.

Tom’s mother jumps into the conversation with an outraged _What?_ , as she too marches towards Draco. “What lies have you been feeding my son, you- you filth! Tom, what did he say to you?” she demands.

“It’s a secret. Dad says you can’t go around telling secrets,” Tom says, and pops his candy back into his mouth. Draco is reminded of himself, aged eleven, also parroting his father’s words. But Tom is so much better than he was.

“Malfoy!” a familiar voice bellows from behind him. God, this was all such a mess. Should have just let the bugger crawl onto Draco as usual.

“Oh, thank Merlin, Harry Potter,” the man holding Draco up says, evidently relieved.

“The hell is going on here?” Potter asks.

“This- this _Malfoy_ was _saying_ things to my son!”

Potter looks, in succession, bemused, alarmed, and then very, very angry.

“Let go of him,” he says evenly.

“What?” says Tom’s father, evidently surprised that Potter hadn’t immediately pulled out his wand and hexed Draco into little pieces. Draco gently pries his robes out of the man’s hands.

“Draco, this is perfect, I wanted to talk to you. Come on,” and Potter, (Harry?) drags Draco away by the sleeve, leaving Tom’s parents in shock. Tom, on the other hand, waves brightly to Draco. Draco raises a hand in farewell.

“You finally did it,” Potter, Harry says, smiling hugely.

“Did what?”

“Don’t worry about it. Anyways, I wanted to tell you something.”

“Oh, what?” It's strange how friendly his own voice sounds.

“Uh, I-” He pauses for a suspiciously long time, then shakes his head free. “I’ve been trying to lift some of your restrictions.”

He wonders about Harry’s pause for a second. But as Harry's words themselves register, hope flares up within Draco, bright and unkind. It leaves him feeling nastily exposed.

“Why?”

“Wanted to get the Trace off of you, so that I can actually teach you wandless magic.”

“Oh- Thank you,” says Draco. He’s been saying that a lot, lately. “Excuse me, I really need to get to Gringotts.” Draco detaches himself from Potter’s grip.

“Oh- Okay. See you around, Malfoy,” Harry trails off. Does he look... disappointed? No, it can't be that.

“See you, Harry.” He ducks out of the open, wide streets of Diagon Alley thankfully. He has a parole appointment at four.

\--oOo--

The next day, Friday, some awful man is kicking up a huge fuss near the self-checkout area. Sarah, the high school student, is futilely attempting to resolve the situation. Draco can’t understand any of the words coming out of the man’s mouth, except for the swears. The conversation sounds something like this, to Draco’s ears.

“Fwelst simper fucking awits, war fore press! Nothing!”

“I’m sorry sir, I just really cannot understand you!” She looks at Draco desperately, so he immediately walks over. The man redirects his incomprehensible tirade at Draco.

“Aalwekfjoipoiajewf,” the man exclaims, while seeming to chew at something inside his mouth. Well, that was the first time Draco had heard someone manage to articulate a true verbal keyboard smash. Draco nods seriously at the man.

The irritated customer pulls a large handkerchief out of his pocket and spits out a remarkably sized piece of chewed gum into it. Well, then.

“As I was _saying,_ this self-check out machine has _not_ been working!”

“Oh, dear. Well, I would be happy to help you with that,” Draco replies.

The man nods back at Draco, and steps back so that Draco can reset the machine.

“It should work now,” Draco says, and walks away. The man calls an aggressive “Thank you!” after him, and thanks Sarah as well, before stuffing the gum back into his mouth and checking out. 

After the man leaves, Draco and Sarah exchange shrugs and dark smiles. It’s far from the worst shift, Draco thinks. 

Then an owl swoops in through an open window, narrowly avoiding ceiling fans and security cameras, and drops a letter directly into his face. And he can’t even Confund Sarah, who’s staring at him open-mouthed. He shrugs at her with all the haughtiness he can still muster, and stuffs the letter into his pocket. From the way the letter refuses to fold, he can tell there’s some kind of long object within it. He had caught a glimpse of a bronze wax seal, the Ministry’s seal. The very, very faint scent of splintered hawthorne wood makes its way into his mind, but he must be imagining it. He sweeps his way through the rest of his shift, the object within the envelope pressing against his right hip when he bends his knees.

When he gets home, he leaves the letter on the dirty kitchen countertop, and heads up the stairs to the dusty mattress on the second floor.

The next morning, he wakes up, picks up the envelope like it’s a corpse, and walks all the way to Harry’s cottage. It takes more than an hour. When he gets there, he lets himself fall down the well, the bottom of it taking him by surprise, and he curls up like a cat around his unopened letter. He’s crying. Why the hell is he crying? For a moment, he entertains the bizarre delusion that the tears will cause the well to fill up and drown him. After an hour, his face dries, and he curls up tighter.

“Malfoy? Are you alright?” A familiar voice, asking a familiar question

And for a horrible second, he wonders if he walked all the way here just to hear that question from Harry’s mouth. But he quickly dismisses the idea, just as he had dismissed the idea that he would drown in his own tears. He stands up, and chucks the letter as hard as he can within the limited space of the well. It loops gently over the edge, and lands at Harry's feet.

“What- oh. Ministry letter. Did you do something wrong?” Harry says, as he stoops to examine the crumpled paper.

“No.”

“Are you going to come out?”

“Already did.”

“What- oh, very funny, Draco.”

And with sudden knowledge, he realizes that he walked all the way here to hear Harry say his name. His first name, free of hatred and pain, the way Sarah says it, the way Harry had said it that day in Diagon Alley, and the time before that, in the cottage.

“Malfoy! Look! It’s your wand! They listened to me! I can show you wandless magic now, if you still want to learn!” There’s the sound of rustling paper. “Wait- all parole requirements have been removed? Trace removed? Travel ban lifted? Draco!”

Draco luxuriates in the darkness of the well, not responding, listening to the sounds of Harry's voice but not to the words.

“Malfoy! Do you not care?”

“I don’t.”

Without even looking at him, Draco can feel the shift in his mood. But all Harry does is climb down the walls of the well to Draco. He smells like pine and chamomile. He presses a wand into Draco’s hands. Fourteen inches, hawthorn, unicorn hair, and a distinct crack around the middle where it has been snapped and then put back together.

“ _Cast,_ ” Harry practically demands. Draco doesn’t do it, won’t do it, won’t go back to this world. He’s found safer, better worlds, like a Muggle grocery store, a hollow tree, a beaver dam, and a house shaped like a fungal growth. Like this well. Like Harry, and his stupid glasses and stupid eyes. He doesn’t want this wand, which has cast Crucio on eleven-year-olds. But then Harry puts his hands over Draco’s, and says _Lumos,_ and Draco doesn’t want to cry, but he does, like a child. Despite everything, the thrill of the magic overtakes him once again, even as it fades away, and he finds his hands will not let go of the wand. _Lumos,_ Draco murmurs again, and feels the power flow through him, something so small he wouldn’t even have noticed before, but now it feels like a torrent, like everything he shouldn’t be and yet still is, like a distant circle of light above him rushing towards him. Like freedom, open air, clinging to a broom and mocking the boy across from him. He opens his eyes, and sees Harry Potter, and for a second he sees him as a second-year in Gryffindor Seeker robes, sneering back at him. But Harry is not Potter, and Draco is not Malfoy.

“You fine?”

Draco laughs. “Maybe,” he allows, and casts _Lumos_ a third time, and maybe it’s how dark the well is, but the charm seems brighter than it has ever been before. “Let’s go somewhere with more space.”

Harry Apparates them to a small forest clearing, encircled by tall spruces and cedars. 

“I said more _space,_ Potter.” 

Harry looks at him, confused, and then a slow smile spreads across his face. He reaches, hesitantly, towards Draco, and brushes a bit of hair out of Draco’s face. Draco grins back at him. _Beautiful,_ Draco thinks. Beautiful eyes and beautiful hair and a beautiful smile, and Draco has his _wand_ back, and he can make _light,_ and Harry’s with him, and maybe small worlds can survive in the big worlds, after all.

Harry takes his arm and drags him through the trees, until both of them are running, stumbling over each other’s feet and panting, laughing. They break out into a wide, limitless field of long grass, swaying gently in a quiet summer breeze, and Draco goes on running, pulling Harry along until the treeline is a distant shadow. His wand’s in his other hand, but he doesn’t cast anything. It’s enough to feel it, the potential stored within it, so many more possibilities than a dirty house or the inside of a tree. He leans his head against Potter’s shoulder, and there are possibilities there too, aren’t there? He’s just been too stupid and stubborn and self-deceptive to know it, just like with everything else. He looks up at the vast dusky sky, the stars just beginning to show themselves. He can feel Harry’s gaze on him.

“Potter.”

“Say Harry.”

“Harry.”

“Yes, what?” Harry asks, just a little too harshly for his casual tones.

They’re standing a few feet apart, now, facing each other. Draco leans forward, almost imperceptibly, but Harry’s eyes follow the movement.

“Draco- fuck. Please-”

“Please what?” Draco walks a pace forward, the steps of the dance coming back to him as easily as the magic had. Harry stops breathing for a second, then exhales sharply.

“ _Please._ ”

Seducing the Savior of the Wizarding World. This is probably just the sort of nefarious deed that people like Tom’s parents were always suspecting him of. Draco smirks at the thought, and takes another step forward, the toes of his shoes almost lining up against Harry’s, the grass stalks bending gently under his weight.

“Do you _want_ something, Harry?”

Harry opens his mouth, tries to speak, and closes it. Suddenly, Draco remembers something very important.

“Didn’t you say you were straight?”

Harry breaks out of his trance. “What? Er- yes, I did _say_ -”

“Oh hell no, I’m not dealing with another questioning guy. As if Theo wasn’t bad enough.”

“ _What?_ ”

Draco Apparates away.

The important thing he had remembered was that he was a coward. Someone who would rather sit in a well than face the world. And how could someone like that, a Death Eater, a person who Crucio’d first years, face Harry Potter and a field of grass and night stars?

He goes to Eeylops, rents an owl, and buys some extra parchment at a stationary shop. Then he returns home, and by the feeble light of the narrow kitchenette, writes an apology letter. It’s generic and stiff, and he intends on sending the same one to everyone. In the letter, he apologizes for this fact. But it’s as honest as he’ll ever be.

It’s funny how the shame of punishment resolves you from guilt, and when the punishment is lifted, you remember that the guilt has been there all along, hovering over your head like an old friend who’s out of town. That you don’t actually deserve open air, or wide fields, or smiles from Muggle high school students, or small children believing you when you say you’re a good person, and you _definitely_ don't deserve Harry Potter swallowing hard as he looks at you. What you deserve is a well.

Malfoys don’t get what they want.

He looks at his cursive handwriting, scrawled line after line, then taps the letter with his wand, duplicating it with a copying spell, working a page at a time. Finally, he addresses each of the letters. Hermione Granger, Neville Longbottom, Ron Weasley, Ginny Weasley, what the hell, write all the Weasley’s in there, might as well send one to their parents as well. Lavender Brown. Parvati and Padma Patil. Luna Lovegood. Harry Potter. He sends the owl off, the many rolls of parchment clutched precariously in her talons, asks her to not accept return letters, and to return to Eeylops afterwards. She twists her head at him in acknowledgement, and flies away, flapping heavily.

He wonders what Harry has been doing. Does he have a job? Any kind of work? Why does he seem to always be there whenever Draco wants or needs him?

It feels as though Draco has finally been pitched back into the real world, where Harry Potter should have better things to do than Draco Malfoy (heh), the real world where Draco needs to send apology letters and find a Wizarding job and- and visit his mother. God, he hasn’t seen her in so long. Narcissa.

Anyways, there’s no more time to hide from whispered insults in trees, is there? If anyone sends an owl with a response to his letter, he _will_ read it.

He begins to make himself a late supper, chopping up potatoes and dropping them into boiling water. He’ll pan fry them after in olive oil. The boil of the water and the rhythm of the knife reassure him. His wand never leaves his hand, even though he never uses it. He reaches for the dried rosemary in the cabinet, which is the only seasoning he has other than salt and pepper.

He thinks about wandless magic. “I sort of just pretend my arm itself is the wand,” Potter had said.

An owl swoops in through the still open window and drops a red envelope, edges already blackening, onto the kitchen countertop, then swoops back out.

A Howler. He grabs a kitchen knife and slits the damn thing open before it explodes.

“Hi, uh, Draco. Sorry that this is a Howler, but I just honestly didn’t think you would read anything from me otherwise." Draco snorts. Well, he's not wrong. "Look, I know I should have communicated better before I started, uh, flirting with you, but you were right. I _am_... -gay. God, it’s still hard to say the _words._ Anyways, it explains a lot. Kind of embarrassing that you had to tell me before I figured it out. You weren't right about the Cedric thing, though, thank God. I told Ron and Hermione a week ago, it was positively nerve wracking- wait, you don’t care about that. Sorry for ranting, but I’ve been losing sleep over this for two weeks and it’s your fault.” 

There’s a long pause, during which Draco smiles a little at Harry’s incoherent rambling and burns his potatoes. He remembers when he suffered through much of the same sort of thought process, and spent long nights frantically owling Pansy. The Howler resumes.

“Draco, I don’t know why you’re apologizing _again._ I thought that was all water under the bridge. It _was_ water under the bridge, to me. I’m sure most of the other people you sent that letter to would agree. I doubt anyone who actually knew you as a person still holds it against you.” 

And as if on cue, a second owl swoops in and drops a letter on Draco. He scans through it, while listening to Harry’s voice. It’s from Granger, thanking him for the apology but asking ‘haven’t you already apologized? You must have, because I forgave you a long time ago.’

“It’s just people like that awful family in Diagon Alley who care, because they probably see you as a symbol, the same way they see me as a symbol. But I wonder what they’re trying to prove, and who to. Anyways, that’s about all. I hope your wand works the same. Bye, Malfoy. Let yourself be happy for once, will you?” The Howler stops.

 _Happy?_ Draco thinks. He remembers some kind of happiness, looking up through the darkness of a well, looking up at Potter while sitting half under his living room desk. But those places were from a different world, one in which Draco had been fettered and festering.

Happy. He Apparates to Malfoy Manor, and sees his mother again, the way he's wanted to for the past four years. He laughs and cries, and everything else in between, and tries not to tell her everything he’s been through, but he does anyways.

When he returns home (but the pancake house isn’t his home, is it?) half a night later, Draco thinks about how happy, reassured, relieved Harry had looked, every time Draco asked for something or came out of a small space or stood up for himself. He looks out at the night through his tiny kitchen window, sprinkled with stars that have shined their way through the foggy skies of England. The weight of his wand in his hand feels like an old friend who’s been out of town. 

So he Apparates to the Ministry of Magic, busy even at four in the morning, people bustling through its wide marble hallways. He arrives under the high vaulted ceilings of the Atrium, meets the glares of anyone who chooses to look at him, and feels perfectly at ease. He walks to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, heels clicking loudly, and pushes the door open. It swings into a modest foyer, containing several potted plants, a front desk, and a night shift Auror. Draco walks in slowly, then pointedly clears his throat until the sandy-haired Auror at the desk looks up. The man looks exhausted, dark circles under his eyes and a tired smile. Draco can sympathize.

“Excuse me. I was wondering if you could let me know how I might apply to be an Auror?”

Draco can pinpoint the exact moment the Auror realizes who Draco is. He looks like he’s about to argue for a second, but he simply replies with “Basic qualifications include five NEWTs of at least Exceeds Expectations, preferably including Defence, Potions, Transfigurations, Charms, and Potions.”

“I have seven Outstandings, which I believe include all of those subjects, as well as Muggle Studies and Ancient Runes.”

“Aurors are also technically required to have a clean record.” It takes Draco a second to realize he’s referring to criminality.

“That does seem to be a bit of an impediment, then.”

“Indeed.” The Auror eyes him. “You would also have to undergo a series of character and aptitude tests.”

“This is something I’ve wanted for a long time,” Draco says, and is shocked when he hears the honesty in his own voice.

The Auror drums his fingers against the desk, apparently deliberating. Suddenly, he shrugs, grins at Draco, and plucks a form from a pale blue folder. He slides it towards Draco across the desk.

“There you are, Mr. Malfoy. Best of luck.”

“Thank you. I really appreciate it,” and Draco does. He nods to the Auror, and Apparates home. 

It takes him a moment to realize that he has Apparated to Harry’s cottage, not to his own house. Like the night shift Auror, Draco shrugs and goes with it. He knocks on the door, belatedly realizing it’s four thirty in the morning and dark outside.

“What in the hell kind of time do you call _this,_ Ron? Wh- Draco?” The light spills out into the night from the open doorway, Harry standing just inside.

“Sorry, I lost track of time.” Draco sways dangerously from side to side, and grins at Harry.

“Malfoy? Are you _drunk?_ ”

“I saw my mother again! Wrote letters! And! Got your Howler! And Auror application!”

“What? In the last _four hours?_ ”

Draco waves the application in Harry’s face, and on a sudden impulse, the kind that stems from human agency and self-indulgence, hugs Harry, almost dropping the papers.

“Thank you thank you thank you,” Draco says, barely in control of his faculties anymore, delirious with relief. “Also, see? You’re gay. Told you.”

“Yes, you told me. By accusing me of being homophobic.”

“Thank you,” Draco says again.

“It’s quite alright, Malfoy.”

“Call me Draco.”

“Alright, Draco.” Suddenly, they both remember the last time one of them had asked the other to call them by their first name. Or at least Draco remembers, and he sees Harry stiffen across from him.

“Draco. You’re becoming an _Auror?_ ”

“Is that a problem?”

“No, I’m just-” And Harry gives him that grin, full of relief and reassurance. "Happy. Proud."

Can’t Malfoys just have what they want?

“Harry.”

“Yes.”

Draco takes a step closer, almost crossing over the threshold into the house. It smells familiar, like chamomile tea and splintered pine.

“I do want you.”

Harry blinks quickly and his lips part, but his expression remains the exact same, a picture of fervent relief. Only now it’s underlined with something else. His eyes darken.

“Are you going to leave again, complaining about how I’m actually straight?”

“No, I don’t think that’s the plan.”

“I hope you’re sure about that.”

“I’m sorry I left. I didn’t realize what I was doing.”

Harry stares at him, and swallows hard. “Don’t leave again.”

"I won't. I'll want you tomorrow, too."

What is that Muggle saying, about actions and words, and which speaks louder?

Draco leans in sideways towards Harry, trapping him against the peeling white paint of the doorframe. Harry leans back, gazes easily back at Draco, and stops breathing again. 

Draco doesn’t think about open spaces or small spaces, and what they mean, or the guilt inexplicably tied to the wand in his pocket, or the way the Auror at the front desk had shrugged and smiled, or Muggle girls or beaver dams or the parents of boys named Tom, or dry wells and narrow staircases. All that matters is Harry Potter in front of him. 

They don't fuck that night, they only kiss once, against the doorframe, and Draco doesn't play push-and-pull like he did last time. Harry wraps his arms around Draco and pulls him to the bedroom, and they drift off in each other's arms, Harry demonstrating his wandless _accio_ a few times before sleepiness overtakes him. He says things like "you'll do so well" and "they'd _better_ accept your application" and "I really am proud of you, Draco, as weird as it is to say, and not just about the Auror thing." Draco sits up to press a silent, chaste kiss to Harry's forehead, looks at the man sprawled out next to him, chest rising and falling quietly, messy dark hair spread out on the pillows. _Beautiful,_ he thinks, one last time before sleep overtakes him too, still sitting up against the headboard. He dreams about fields of grass and stars, and the taste of forgiveness and freedom. And this time, Draco doesn’t leave, or hide, or run.

And so, galaxies turn, planets spin, bigots exclude, children keep secrets. The small worlds live on within the big ones, and something a lot like happiness lives on within Draco Malfoy, as he finally finds, in the swirling chaos of the worlds, a quiet kind of liberty.

**Author's Note:**

> I was actually hoping to write something Wind-Up Bird inspired, but all we ended up with is Draco Malfoy in a well experiencing post-war angst. Well, what can you do? (ha, "well")
> 
> Kudos, comments and suggestions are greatly appreciated!


End file.
